Historically, popular audio entertainment media have included phonograph records, eight-track tape cartridges and audio cassettes. Recently, consumer items such as compact discs (CDs) have emerged as an alternative to the traditional media. Since the consumer or retailer may well have many such items, storage has become a significant problem. Particularly, the owner of such items needs a compact method of storage that can keep the items well organized for prompt identification and easy access.
In this context, the jackets or the shell containers for the items usually have interesting artworks on the front thereof to provide aesthetic representations of the items for promotional purposes. Since the relatively large visual image on the front of the jacket or shell container is more easily recognized than the relatively small words on the edge of the jacket or container, the task of identifying a particular item from a number of items could be accelerated considerably if the storage system allows for an inspection of the front face of the jacket or the shell container for such items. Further, a collage of these aesthetic designs has been found to be attractive as an artwork that can enhance the overall entertainment process. Thus, a need exists for a storage system with the ability to: (1) store items in a space efficient manner, (2) provide quick and easy access to the items, and (3) display the shell covers.
Numerous racks have been provided in the prior art that are adapted to display various items. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,867,306 to Factor, U.S. Pat. No. 4,350,252 to Hopkins, U.S. Pat. No. 4,290,530 to Wooster, U.S. Pat. No. 4,919,287 to Haskett et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,940,147 to Hunt and U.S. Pat. No. 3,805,962 to Bendiksen are illustrative of such prior art. Factor discloses a rack assembly having axially spaced ledges positioned such that the compact disc container is gripped in the rack assembly. Hopkins discloses a storage rack mountable to a support for receiving and fully displaying individual thin rectangular articles such as record albums. Wooster discloses a frame for storing and displaying a single set of record albums, stacked one behind the other, that can be slid partially off the frame to reveal record albums therebehind. Haskett discloses a display unit for storing and displaying the artwork of compact disks having a plurality of parallel horizontal rails. Hunt discloses a compact disk wall rack for displaying the artwork of compact disks. Bendiksen discloses a display rack having a plurality of horizontal rails wherein a single row of articles can be placed in side-by-side on each horizontal rail. However, while these prior art units display the cover art of the media packages, they do not provide the most efficient storage because of their poor space utilization.